Following the delay of the original planned release date of October 27, Blizzard have now announced they are ready for the new expansion to go live on 24 November. While many Beta testers agree that the expansion is in much better shape now than when it was due to go live back in October, many are also concerned with the large number of issues still to be addressed. These include the imbalance in the classes and specialisations which have been getting steady worse for the last couple of expansions. The imbalance of the new borrowed power systems being introduced, Covenant Abilities, Soulbinds and Conduits.
While great strides have been taken in fixing the levelling experience, there is still room for some fine tuning. Some of the zones aren’t quite up to scratch with those in previous expansions. The 50 to 60 storyline is lacking in places and the quest variety is still limited. The end game is seeming quite the Marmite topic. I, personally, hate it.
There are still a few weeks to go before launch and the current Beta build is likely a few weeks behind the development build, so there is still hope that many more issues might be fixed before the big day. Will I be there on the big day? Unlikely. In my experience, Shadowlands plays very much like the last expansion, BfA, which was not my cup of tea. At few points during the Beta testing of Shadowlands have I felt like I’m having fun. The storyline at no point engaged me and the end game feels like a hamster wheel grind, but I do like Marmite.
